Herbs from Flatbush in Vitality Teas product line

Photograph by: Megan Voss
, Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - When you think Alberta food products, it’s easy to conjure up manly images of beef, or sunshine-splashed fields of canola. Tea doesn’t usually leap to mind.

But an Edmonton entrepreneur by the name of Fanta Camara has created a line of herbal drinks called Vitaly Teas, which is as steeped in the local landscape as any heritage breed on four legs. The tea contains organic, hand-picked herbs from Chickadee Farm near Flatbush (less than an hour north of Edmonton), along with a variety of other teas from parts of the world more closely associated with china cups and pinky fingers.

Camara, a native of Senegal, discovered she loved tea when she moved to Canada at the age of 21 to attend university in Moncton, N.B.

“Back home, I drank hot chocolate for breakfast … but in residence I discovered that I liked black tea in the morning, green tea in the afternoon, and herbal tea in the evening,” she recalls.

By the time Camara moved from Moncton to Ottawa to pursue a second degree, she was creating her own tea blends to satisfy an increasingly demanding tea palate. In retrospect, Camara thinks she came by her passion for home preparations honestly; her grandmother in Mali was a medicine woman, renowned for herbal concoctions.

But it wasn’t until the late 1990s when she moved to Edmonton with her husband (and Vitaly Teas business partner) Marc-Andre Sabourin, that Camara turned to tea as a career option. She began creating and marketing exclusive herbal and organic tea blends from the family home as a way to keep working while raising her children, now 16 and 11.

Her first big break came when the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald began placing Vitaly Teas in its VIP rooms. Now Vitaly Teas are found in choice Edmonton restaurants including Vivo and The Upper Crust.

In 1999, her first year in production, Camara blended about 100 kilograms of tea; now the company puts out about 1,000 kilograms yearly in 16 different blends, from Organic Rooibos to Vanilla Chai to Mint Bliss. She also produces three different kinds of chai latte syrup made from organic Assam black tea from India, pure vanilla and fresh ginger.

One syrup is sweetened with Quebec maple syrup and unpasteurized Alberta honey from the co-op, Bee Maid, a second is unsweetened, and the third is also unsweetened and made from caffeine-free roasted chicory. (The chai syrup is available, for sipping by the cup or buying in bulk, at Edmonton’s Fresh Cafe at 10038 116th St.)

“Everything is fresh. We buy whole spices and grind them,” says Camara of the chai blends.

The secret to Vitaly Teas blends is that Camara insists on using relatively large pieces of the tea leaf for brewing, rather than the dusty grains normally associated with conventional, store-bought tea.

“Whole leaves always have the best flavour,” says Camara.

For this reason, Camara chose to keep her line in a loose tea form for many years, because a tea bag capable of holding bigger tea leaves had yet to be invented. In 2008, however, a three-dimensional, triangular bag came on the market and Camara switched up her business plan, taking her 10 bestselling teas and packaging them in the new bags for ease of serving.

Camara is a perfectionist when it comes to tea, visiting the Chickadee Farm to observe their harvest methods for picking everything from rosehips to camomile flowers. Some of the Vitaly Teas herbs are raised on the farm, but others are gathered in approved areas of the boreal forest using what Camara calls “ethical wildcrafting practices.” This means pickers are careful not to deplete the wild plant supply, collecting only a portion of the leaves so the plants can grow back easily. Pickers walk into the forest patches and even into their own market fields, and carry the herbs out in backpacks to avoid disrupting the natural environment with vehicles.

“You can feel all the love and everything they put into harvesting. …” says Camara.

Right now Vitaly Teas are available in Calgary only at Worldwide Specialty Foods. Edmonton offers numerous locations for tea fans, including the Eat Local section of Save-On-Foods, plus Planet Organic south and the Old Strathcona Farmers Market. Nutter’s Bulk and Natural Foods in numerous smaller centres across the province (including Camrose, Jasper, Airdrie and Canmore) also stock Vitaly Teas. For more information, go to vitalyteas.com.

Earl Grey Tea Vinaigrette

This recipe is provided by the Tea Association of Canada and can be used as a salad dressing, as a marinade for meat or fish, or a basting sauce for grilled vegetables. The rich, dark flavour of the tea means less oil is necessary, so this recipe is good for those cutting back on their fats. It yields four to six servings.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (125 mL) strong Earl Grey tea

2 tablespoons (30 mL) orange juice

1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) granulated sugar

1 tablespoon (15 mL) rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon (15 mL) minced shallots

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 teaspoon (1 mL) each salt and pepper

2 tablespoons (30 mL) sesame oil

1/4 cup (50 mL) chopped fresh basil

Method:

Place tea, orange juice and sugar in a small sauce pan or skillet and bring to boil; reduce to about 2 tablespoons (30 mL). Combine tea mixture, vinegar, shallots, garlic, salt, pepper and sesame oil. Stir in basil. This can be made up to 2 days ahead. In large bowl, toss together leafy greens, dried cranberries and pine nuts or other salad fixings of your choice; drizzle the dressing over the greens and toss to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary.

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